


The Shirt Off His Back

by likebunnies



Series: The Laundry Stories [1]
Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Laundry, Male-Female Friendship, Partnership
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likebunnies/pseuds/likebunnies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ichabod Crane doesn't have much left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shirt Off His Back

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this little character piece after episode 1.02 and finished it after 1.03. Although I love the idea of Abbie/Ichabod, this one doesn't quite go there yet. I'll approach that in another story. Someday. This is also the first non-mature rated thing I've written in forever so I'm sure no one will ever read it. All errors in spelling, time and syntax are mine as I have yet to find someone to drag into this with me. -- Jori

Abbie pours in some Tide and turns the dial on the washing machine to the most delicate setting available, hoping that his antiquated clothing won't come out in tatters by the time it's done. Maybe she should skip the spin cycle and let him wring them out by hand. Or maybe it would be best if they fall apart and he has to wear something new. Something from this century. Or even the last century. 

Crane has been washing out his clothing by hand in his hotel room but Abbie couldn't stand the smell of them anymore. If they were going to be spending this much time together on this... whatever this was... things were going to have to change. A lot of things. 

Eventually, she was going to have to take him shopping. Where? To a mall? She didn't even like local malls under the best of circumstances. The thought of dragging Crane near a Hot Topic and listening to him carry on about the price of things and the local sales tax made her shake her head, wondering how she was going to get through this and retain a tiny shred of sanity.

Maybe she's no longer sane anymore in the first place. Maybe he's just here to prove that. 

As the fresh scent of the detergent fills the air, she closes the shuttered door on her laundry room and hopes for the best for his garments. She finds Crane standing in her living room. He is staring at the few photos she has around, most of them of her and Jenny taken by some foster parent years ago...before it all went wrong. He has a look of melancholy on his face. 

Unfortunately, that look doesn't match how ridiculous the rest of him appears. He is wearing an old pair of her sweatpants and seeing as Crane is a good foot taller than her, the sweatpants stop just below his knees, even with them hitched low on his hips. And why wasn't he wearing the shirt she gave him? It was Luke's, left behind in his haste to get all of his stuff out of here. She had been tempted to sleep with it those first few nights after they broke up, to breathe in the scent of him, but she was stronger than that. Or so she kept telling herself. 

“Your clothes should be washed in a few minutes. Probably take a little while longer to dry since I'm not sure they'll survive in dryer even on the lowest heat setting and I might have to hang them up. Was there something wrong with the shirt?” 

As with many of their conversations, he gave her a look like he could only understand half of what she was saying and was quickly trying to translate the rest of it. He was a quick study but certain things were just hard to explain without showing him. Like coffee makers and tumble dryers. 

“No, there is nothing wrong with this shirt,” he says, holding it up and looking at word Army emblazoned across the chest. “But perhaps there is the chance your former paramour might like it back without me in it?”

“Nothing gets by you, does it, Sherlock?” Abbie asks, taking the shirt and tossing it aside on an armchair. 

“Captain America. Sherlock. Are they anything alike?” he asks, his eyes following her as she straightens up her living room. He arrived unexpectedly at her front door and after the last few crazy days, she didn't have time to organize her life again. She wasn't sure she was going to have time to ever organize it again. 

“Not at all. Have a seat and I'll see if there is another shirt around here you can wear,” Abbie says, her mind racing through her collection of fitted shirts, camisoles and sports bras. And, of course, her uniform shirts. Nothing that would fit his lanky torso. “Or you can just cover up in this for now.”

She hands him the blanket from the couch, the soft purple blanket she buries herself under when she can't sleep and instead finds herself watching television late into the night. It has been her best friend since this “Sandman” thing happened. He wraps himself in the fleece throw and remains standing, like a big purple dinosaur in the middle of her life. Like Barney popping in from the Jurassic. 

“Would you like to sit down for a while?” she asks and he nods as she gestures to the couch. He sits on one end and she sits on the other, tucking her feet up under her for warmth. 

“Thank you for rescuing me from that horrible inn,” he says, tugging at the legs of his pants to cover himself more. 

“I didn't rescue you. You just showed up. How did you get here anyway?” she asks. The guard had been removed from his door a few days ago but they had no where else to put him so there he stayed. There or at the Armory. They had stopped at her place a few days ago and he must have used that memory of his to recall the route back to the hotel. 

“I have feet,” he says, raising an eyebrow at her. “Although it seems to be a forgotten art amongst your peers, I do know how to navigate directions and then walk.”

“Right. Now what was wrong with the hotel this time?” Abbie knew it wasn't the greatest place in town but at least it had a bed. And it wasn't a cave. And it wasn't her living room. 

“There was some sort of commotion going on. Apparently some athletic team vanquished another and the local youth were... partying hard?” he says, looking at her to make sure he got it right. “And I can only imagine what was going on in the room next to mine...”

She turned away from his stare and closed her eyes. She knew all too well what goes on in that hotel. She had been called out many time to break up a few parties. And in her younger days, she had been at a few of those parties. Created a few of those commotions. 

“What?! Are you bashful? I do know what was happening in the room next door. Your generation certainly didn't invent sex,” Crane says and she opens her eyes and stares at him. 

“First of all, unless you want a lecture, don't ever say that to a Baby Boomer...”

“A what? That sounds painful...”

“And second, doesn't every generation believe they discovered sex? Or at least sex in airplanes... or in the backseat of cars. Your generation certainly didn't have either of those things going on,” Abbie chides and he shrugs his shoulders at her. 

“No, we didn't have airplanes or automobiles but there were plenty of other things unique to that time...”

“Like bundling boards? Dancing a reel in the barn? Hay mounds?” 

“Don't criticize a good barn dance until you've attended one, Lieutenant Mills. As for what goes on in the hay mounds, oh, I could tell you stories from my long lost youth...” Crane starts but Abbie cuts him off by clearing her throat. “Or you could tell me stories from your misspent youth, if you'd prefer?” 

“I'd prefer to discuss what we are going to do next. You can't live in that “inn” forever. You can't wear the same clothes forever. Seven years will seem like fifty without a change of underwear,” Abbie says and Crane merely nods. 

“I have thought about these things. And had I known I was going to be resurrected from the grave and deposited 250 years into the future, I would have most certainly stashed away a hidden cache of gold. Considering I assumed dead was dead, I did no such thing. Now I must figure out how to make my way,” Crane says and Abbie doesn't add anything for a long, quiet minute. 

Over the last few days, Abbie was so focused on what a mess this is making of her life she often forgets that, if he is telling the truth and isn't completely off his rocker, his life is just as messed up. Even if he is insane, things aren't going all that well for him. Well, beyond the insanity part. She had lost Corbin but he had lost everything.

Abbie yawns, looking at the clock on the wall. She can't go to bed until the washing machine has stopped. She can't go to bed until she figures out what to do with Crane. Seven years. What if they fail? 

What if they don't?

“Tell me what your life was like before you came here. Tell me about your family. Tell me what the world was like back then,” Abbie says, hoping to take his mind off of his current predicament... their current predicament. 

He tells her, weaving a tale about an ocean voyage and a change of heart. About a land still unconquered by European man. About Katrina and how long it took for her to fall in love with him. He follows her when she goes to the laundry room and tells her of a family left behind while he hangs up the few items he still has in this world, smoothing the delicate fabric beneath his palm. 

It's all he has left. That, a bible and a few fleeting moments with his long-dead wife. 

“Katrina made this for me,” Crane says, his long fingers gracefully touching the delicate seams on his shirt that thankfully survived the spin cycle. “I did not die in this shirt. She chose this. She probably cleaned me and then dressed me.”

Abbie's heart breaks for him as they both stand in this tiny room, surrounded by the fabric that ties him to a long ago past. How could she make him give that up to wear a pair of blue jeans and a discount store T-shirt with some wry comment on the chest? He couldn't possibly be ready to give up his boots for a pair of Nikes. 

“You can spend the night here. I'll make the couch for you. This should be dry by morning,” Abbie assures him, taking his hand in hers as he moves it away from the ties on his shirt. “You won't be stuck wearing my old sweatpants forever...”

“Not that your trousers aren't comfortable, I just don't think I'm ready to let go,” he says, squeezing her hand. He doesn't release her hand right away but holds it in his. “I'm not ready to let go of a lot of things yet. Give me time?”

“I think we have seven years together. Enough time?” Abbie asks and he smiles at her. She's not sure where this conversation is headed anymore. Not that it matters. Neither of them is sure where they are headed. But they are in it together. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The End


End file.
